 twilight review
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Aug. 19th, 2007 @ 11:59 am 
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I only briefly touched on it yesterday. Here is a deeper look at my thoughts on this book.
Before I begin, I have to tell you that I am only halfway through the book. I do plan on finishing it. but it will be a laborious process. I started out just wanting to talk about Twilight, but it reminded me so much of another book that I start talking about that too.
I don't get it. I really don't get the hype, the bestseller status, the fandom.... anything. Ladies and Gentlemen, Twilight is a bad book. I've done a lot of thinking about it, and that is the conclusion I have come to. But first, some backstory.
When I was in middle school I discovered a set of books called The Vampire Diaries by LJ Smith. This series set fire to my vampire obsession. It was about a slender pale girl who found herself attracted to an impossibly attractive boy who avoids her like the plague at first, but slowly warms up to her. Soon, she discovers he's a vampire. Sound familiar? While reading Twilight, I kept returning to The Vampire Diaries. Why did I hate Twilight so much when I still love this series?
First of all, there's Bella. Whiny, graceless, beautiful but doesn't know it, and seemingly emotionally void. When Bella discusses her feelings with Edward, I get nothing from her. I feel like she's reading from a textbook on how to have a relationship with a mysterious stranger. On the contrast, Elena, the heroine of The Vampire Diaries, has no misdirected modesty about her looks. She's graceful and tall, and best of all, she is a stong, independent minded girl. In the first book, she finds herself very much in a situation like Bella does, being attacked by some guys. What does Elena do? She fights back. Bella isn't even given the chance to fight back - Edward immediately comes to her rescue. In Elena's story, Stefan eventually comes to her rescue, but from there out, whenever there is a battle, Elena and Stefan fight side by side - while Bella is constantly waiting for Edward to come rescue her.
When it comes to their relationship, I found absolutely no believeability in it. Shy new girl develops crush on handsome mysterious boy. Mysterious boy says 3 sentences to her; she is in love. On the other side, Edward falls in love with her because of his uncontrollable desire to eat her? In what world is someone wanting to kill you romantic? When they talk, they are both cold and unemotional - I feel no warmth or genuine care from either party in this one. This is not love, or at least, Myers is not showing me that this is love. There is no reason for them to be together other than Bella thinks he's cute and he wants to eat her.
I really don't want to get into the antifeminist undertones of this book, but I feel the need to touch on it, as it seems almost unavoidable while reading this book. Bella is a classic co-dependant. Mom couldn't focus all her attention on her anymore, so she goes to live with dad. Dad's never home, so she finds someone else to latch on to - a daring, dangerous man who wants to kill her. How progressive. And whenever she's in trouble (silly girl, always finding herself in trouble!) he swoops done to rescue her so that she will never have to learn from her mistakes or god forbid, defend herself.
All in all I find the characters unrelatable and unlikeable, and the plot line plodding and slow. I feel the need to finish the book, even though stopping every other page to roll my eyes does slow down the process somewhat.
Also - GLITTERING VAMPIRES? WTF. |
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| From: | ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) themis |
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| Date: |
August 19th, 2007 05:25 pm (UTC) |
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I followed this link from my blog. I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on Twilight, especially Bella's co-dependancy. And whenever she's in trouble (silly girl, always finding herself in trouble!) he swoops done to rescue her so that she will never have to learn from her mistakes or god forbid, defend herself.Seriously! Maybe she would have been okay if Edward wasn't there for her to lean on the whole time. Or maybe if Edward were less of an ass, even. But I doubt it.
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| From: | terzian |
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| Date: |
August 20th, 2007 01:22 am (UTC) |
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I LOVE LJ Smith's books. I feel the fact that they are out of print is a horrible tragedy. My favorite was the Night of the Solstice 2-part series. I realize this has nothing to do with the actual point of your post, but I've been trolling ebay for the complete set of Night World books for the last few weeks on a random whim, so I felt I had to reply.
Also, I haven't read Twilight, but everyone's always raving about Jodi Picoult and I fucking hate her books, so I feel your pain.
the Night of the Solstice and Heart of whatever books were my FAVORITES. God, I loved those - the whole King Arthur mythology in the second one just blew me away. SOOO good.
see, i heard twilight was great. should i not recommend it to the teen girls that come into my bookstore?
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